By MAUREEN E. DOWNEY 

 Smithsonian Institution 



This is the second of a projected series of five type catalogs, one for 

 each class of recent echinoderms. Thanks mainly to the efforts of Austin 

 H. Clark, A. E. Verrill, Rene Koehler, and others, the most important 

 America. 1 collection of ophiurans is in the U.S. National Museum, which 

 has 6,999 type specimens of a total of 12,062 type specimens in the major 

 collections in the country. The Museum of Comparative Zoology, through 

 the diligence of Hubert Lyman Clark, Theodore Lyman, and Theodore 

 Mortensen, also has an important collection of ophiuroids, of which 4,500 

 specimens are types. The Peabody Museum at Yale has 50 of A. E. Verrill's 

 ophiuroid types in its collection, and the Allan Hancock Foundation in Cali- 

 fornia has 513 types, most of them described by Fred Ziesenhenne. About 

 half of the specimens in this catalog are preserved dry and half in 

 alcohol. The types include 902 nominal species and subspecies, of 201 

 nominal genera. In all, about 2,500 lots of types (12,062 specimens) were 

 examined in preparing this catalog. 



The geographical distribution of the species here represented is world 

 wide. Many of the types are from collections made by the Blake, Albatross, 

 Discovery and Challenger expeditions, the John Murray Expedition, the 

 University of Iowa Bahamas Expedition, Dr. Mortensen' s Expedition to 

 the Pacific, and several expeditions of the Allan Hancock Foundation. 



With the exception of a few specimens at the Allan Hancock Foundation, 

 which were not available to me at the time of my visit there (later examined 

 by Capt. Ziesenhenne), I have personally examined and verified every type 

 specimen herein listed. 



In many cases the original description of a species did not con- 

 tain designation of a holotype, and unless the species was based on a single 

 specimen, the material on which the description was based is treated as 

 syntypic, even though the describer may have labeled one specimen "holo- 

 type." Types subsequently designated, either by the same author or another, 

 are lectotypes. Paratypes are specimens, other than the designated holo- 

 type, mentioned in the original publication or obviously material other 

 than the holotype on which the original description was based. Only primary 

 type material is included here. The task of trying to determine secondary 

 types in those extensively studied collections would be formidable — even, 

 perhaps, impossible; thus only types having nomenclatural significance 

 have been listed. 



